Alastair Reynolds's Blog, page 34

Edits in

Just a minor update to say that I completed the first substantial round of editorial revisions on the new book, which now has a title that editor, publisher, marketing and author are all now happy with - but I'll wait until there's some sort of formal announcement before unleashing it on the world. There are still a few hurdles to be jumped before the book goes into production, but in the meantime I am now moving forward with the next big project, while also finding time for a bit of short fi...

Novel delivered

If I've not had much to say here in recent months, it's not because I haven't been busy. In truth, 2014 has been one of the most productive years of my writing life, but other than offering a series of endless progress reports on steadily increasing word counts, I don't find that there's much to say about being in the act of producing another book. Put simply, it's not very exciting. I start my day, I produce my intended wordage, I back up and switch off my computer - and then repeat for eigh...

New stories

While I continue work on the new novel, just time to mention a couple of new fiction items that are available online for free.

Back in June, I was pleased to be given the chance to write a piece of short fiction for something a bit out of the ordinary. The piece was slated to be part of a scientific press release, centred around the announcement of some exciting work done by astronomers at Queen Mary (University of London). Guillem Anglada-Escude and his team were reporting on a striking disco...

All change!

 I've had a major overhaul of my author website:

www.alastairreynolds.com

The URL hasn't changed, but the site now has a totally new structure and look, and should be much more easy for me to maintain and update in the future. As part of the revamp, there is now a dedicated blogging area as part of the new site. This begs the question of what is to become of this blog, and my first thought - other than to discontinue this one - was to continue cross-posting entries to both sites, at least...

Class of '88

Or thereabouts. After gaining my degree in astronomy from Newcastle in 1988, I moved to Scotland to begin my postgraduate studies in St Andrews. I was to spend three years working toward my PhD in optical astronomy, during which period I also made my first professional sales as a writer. Here, a quarter of a century later, are four of us from those days.




I'm on the left; next to me is Gavin Ramsay, who joined us in St Andrews a year or so after my arrival. Gavin has remained in astronomy and...

Rossgate

By now the events surrounding Jonathan Ross's proposed MC'ing of the Hugo awards have been well covered - see (for instance) Cheryl Morgan: http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=18632 and Adam Whitehead: http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/worldcon-2014-announces-jonathan-ross.html

I did not think Ross was a good choice for the MC and tweeted as such. But my dislike of Ross's TV persona was my own problem, nobody else's, and I would have been far better off shutting up. Furthermore, despite th...

Does it have to be this way?

Perhaps it's always been like this, but I can't help feeling that the dialogue around SF&F has in recent years grown increasingly toxic and counter-productive. It may well have been just the same in the old days of mimeographed fanzines and letters columns - feuds run long and deep in literary circles - but there's no doubt that the nature of online discussion has raised the temperature, enabling flamewars and "fails" to flare up with numbing regularity. If they burned out as quickly as t...

Sword and Laser video interview

This coming Saturday (18th) I'm doing a video interview with the good people from Sword and Laser, who are based near San Francisco. I'll be Skyping in from Wales. If you'd like to ask me a question, you can drop a suggestion here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1653946-your-questions-for-video-with-alastair-reynolds

Sorry about the short notice.

Horizon of events

I'm out and about in the UK quite a bit this month.

The evening of this coming Wednesday, 6th November, I'll be speaking at the Institute of Physics in Derby:

http://derbyiop.eventbrite.co.uk/

I'll also be signing at Waterstones Derby from 2 - 3 pm on the same day.

The following Thursday, 7th November, I'll be speaking at the Cambridge University Science Fiction and Fantasy Society in, unsurprisingly, Cambridge.

http://cusfs.soc.srcf.net/home

I'm not entirely sure how it works if you are not a mem...

Newport State of Mind

This weekend I'll be participating in Space, Time, Machine and Monster, a literary festival in Newport, South Wales.

http://www.literaturewales.org/space-time-machine-and-monster/

Quoting from the website:

"Following a hugely successful first outing in Pontypridd in 2008, the Space, Time, Machine & Monster literary festival returns for two days packed full of science-fiction, fantasy and horror. Expect talks, workshops, film screenings, panel events and competitions for adults, teens and you...